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On this day, September 25, 1946, Bryan MacLean was born.
I was inspired to post this by the one hit wonder thread over in the DU Lounge.
Bryan MacLean
MacLean, ca. 1970.
Birth name: Bryan Andrew MacLean
Born: September 25, 1946; Los Angeles, California, USA
Died: December 25, 1998 (aged 52); Los Angeles, California, USA
Website: www.bryanmaclean.com
Bryan Andrew MacLean (September 25, 1946 – December 25, 1998) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work with the influential rock band Love. His famous compositions for Love include "Alone Again Or," "Old Man," and "Orange Skies."
Biography
Early life
Bryan MacLean's mother was an artist and a dancer, and his father was an architect for Hollywood celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor and Dean Martin. Neighbor Frederick Loewe, of the songwriting team Lerner & Loewe, recognized him as a "melodic genius" at the age of three as he doodled on the piano. His early influences were Billie Holiday and George Gershwin, although he confessed to an obsession with Elvis Presley. During his childhood, he wore out show music records from Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, South Pacific and West Side Story. His first girlfriend was Liza Minnelli and they would sit at the piano together singing songs from The Wizard of Oz. He learned to swim in Elizabeth Taylor's pool, and his father's good friend was actor Robert Stack. Bryan appears in the 1957 Cary Grant film An Affair to Remember singing in the Deborah Kerr character's music class. Maria McKee is his half-sister.
At 17, Bryan heard The Beatles: "Before the Beatles I had been into folk music. I had wanted to be an artist in the bohemian tradition, where we would sit around with banjos and do folk music, but when I saw A Hard Day's Night everything changed. I let my hair grow out and I got kicked out of high school."
Early music career
Bryan started playing guitar professionally in 1963. He got a job at the Balladeer in West Hollywood playing folk and blues guitar. The following year, the club changed its name to the Troubadour. His regular set routine was a mixture between Appalachian folk songs and delta blues, and he also frequently covered Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues." It was there he met the founding musicians of The Byrds, Gene Clark and Jim McGuinn, when they were rehearsing as a duo. Bryan became good friends with David Crosby. During that time, Bryan also became friends with songwriter Sharon Sheeley, who fixed him up on his first date with singer Jackie De Shannon.
With MacLean as equipment manager, the Byrds went on the road to promote their first single "Mr. Tambourine Man." By the time the Byrds left for their first UK tour, MacLean was left behind and very disappointed.
After an unsuccessful audition for a role in The Monkees, Bryan got into a car on the Sunset Strip that Arthur Lee was driving. Lee’s band, the Grass Roots (not to be confused with the popular rock band of the same name), was the house band at a club called the Brave New World. Lee knew that the colorful dancers and the scene that had followed the Byrds would follow Bryan, if Bryan joined his band, so Lee took Bryan to sit in with them at The Brave New World.
The Grass Roots
The members of the Grass Roots were Arthur Lee (vocals, harmonica, guitar, keyboards, drums), Johnny Echols (lead guitar, vocals), Johnny Fleckenstein (bass), Don Conka (drums), and Bryan MacLean (rhythm guitar, vocals). Despite the success of Lee and the others at the Los Angeles club, another Los Angeles band led by P. F. Sloan was first to record under the name The Grass Roots, which spurred Lee to change the name of his band to Love.
Love
Jac Holzman's Elektra Records signed Love, and they had a minor hit with their version of the Bacharach/David tune "My Little Red Book" and released their debut album Love to which Bryan contributed the melodic "Softly to Me," as well as co-writing two other songs. He also contributed The Byrds' arrangement of "Hey Joe," which he performed live, and sang the lead vocal on the record.
In 1966, Love hit #33 on the US national chart with their proto-punk single "7 and 7 Is," followed by their second album, in November 1966 Da Capo, featuring MacLean’s critically acclaimed "Orange Skies."
Despite their early success, by mid-1967 the 'classic' lineup was already falling apart, due to a combination of factors including internal tensions, complacency, lack of rehearsals, drug use, the growing creative rivalry between Lee and MacLean (MacLean was increasingly unhappy with Lee's domination of the songwriting) and Lee's refusal to tour or travel to promote their records. However, this lineup held together long enough to create their third (and final) album, Forever Changes, which is considered one of the finest rock albums ever, reaching #40 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 albums of all time, #6 on the NME 's (New Music Express's) 100 Best Albums Of All Time (2003) and #11 on Virgin's All-Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). It was entered into the National Recording Registry in May 2012.
Much of the credit for the completion of Forever Changes is due to co-producer Bruce Botnick. After early sessions stalled due to the group's lack of rehearsal and preparation, Botnik hired in several members of legendary L.A. session cohort "The Wrecking Crew" to record with Lee and MacLean on two tracks - a tactic that effectively 'shocked' the group's recalcitrant rhythm section back into action, and after a brief period of intensive rehearsals, they returned to the studio and completed the remaining cuts for the album in just 64 hours.
MacLean’s "Alone Again Or" is the opening track with Arthur Lee providing co-lead vocals.
"Alone Again Or" was the sole single released from the album to appear on the Billboard singles chart ( its B-side was Lee's "A House Is Not A Motel" ). A remixed mono version of "Alone Again Or" was released as a promo single by Elektra in 1970. "Alone Again Or" initially peaked at #123 in 1968 in an edited version, while the longer, original album version spent three weeks on the singles chart in 1970 before peaking at #99, according to Whitburn's "Top Pop Singles: 1955-2010." In 2010, "Alone Again Or" came in at #442 in a poll of the 500 greatest songs of all time conducted by Rolling Stone magazine (it was #436 in the 2004 poll). It had since been covered by many notable acts including UFO, Calexico, and The Damned.
Spiritual conversion and solo music career
{snip}
MacLean then completed a spiritual album of Christian music and was about to record another album when he died of a heart attack in a Los Angeles area restaurant on Christmas Day 1998.
MacLean, ca. 1970.
Birth name: Bryan Andrew MacLean
Born: September 25, 1946; Los Angeles, California, USA
Died: December 25, 1998 (aged 52); Los Angeles, California, USA
Website: www.bryanmaclean.com
Bryan Andrew MacLean (September 25, 1946 – December 25, 1998) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work with the influential rock band Love. His famous compositions for Love include "Alone Again Or," "Old Man," and "Orange Skies."
Biography
Early life
Bryan MacLean's mother was an artist and a dancer, and his father was an architect for Hollywood celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor and Dean Martin. Neighbor Frederick Loewe, of the songwriting team Lerner & Loewe, recognized him as a "melodic genius" at the age of three as he doodled on the piano. His early influences were Billie Holiday and George Gershwin, although he confessed to an obsession with Elvis Presley. During his childhood, he wore out show music records from Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, South Pacific and West Side Story. His first girlfriend was Liza Minnelli and they would sit at the piano together singing songs from The Wizard of Oz. He learned to swim in Elizabeth Taylor's pool, and his father's good friend was actor Robert Stack. Bryan appears in the 1957 Cary Grant film An Affair to Remember singing in the Deborah Kerr character's music class. Maria McKee is his half-sister.
At 17, Bryan heard The Beatles: "Before the Beatles I had been into folk music. I had wanted to be an artist in the bohemian tradition, where we would sit around with banjos and do folk music, but when I saw A Hard Day's Night everything changed. I let my hair grow out and I got kicked out of high school."
Early music career
Bryan started playing guitar professionally in 1963. He got a job at the Balladeer in West Hollywood playing folk and blues guitar. The following year, the club changed its name to the Troubadour. His regular set routine was a mixture between Appalachian folk songs and delta blues, and he also frequently covered Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues." It was there he met the founding musicians of The Byrds, Gene Clark and Jim McGuinn, when they were rehearsing as a duo. Bryan became good friends with David Crosby. During that time, Bryan also became friends with songwriter Sharon Sheeley, who fixed him up on his first date with singer Jackie De Shannon.
With MacLean as equipment manager, the Byrds went on the road to promote their first single "Mr. Tambourine Man." By the time the Byrds left for their first UK tour, MacLean was left behind and very disappointed.
After an unsuccessful audition for a role in The Monkees, Bryan got into a car on the Sunset Strip that Arthur Lee was driving. Lee’s band, the Grass Roots (not to be confused with the popular rock band of the same name), was the house band at a club called the Brave New World. Lee knew that the colorful dancers and the scene that had followed the Byrds would follow Bryan, if Bryan joined his band, so Lee took Bryan to sit in with them at The Brave New World.
The Grass Roots
The members of the Grass Roots were Arthur Lee (vocals, harmonica, guitar, keyboards, drums), Johnny Echols (lead guitar, vocals), Johnny Fleckenstein (bass), Don Conka (drums), and Bryan MacLean (rhythm guitar, vocals). Despite the success of Lee and the others at the Los Angeles club, another Los Angeles band led by P. F. Sloan was first to record under the name The Grass Roots, which spurred Lee to change the name of his band to Love.
Love
Jac Holzman's Elektra Records signed Love, and they had a minor hit with their version of the Bacharach/David tune "My Little Red Book" and released their debut album Love to which Bryan contributed the melodic "Softly to Me," as well as co-writing two other songs. He also contributed The Byrds' arrangement of "Hey Joe," which he performed live, and sang the lead vocal on the record.
In 1966, Love hit #33 on the US national chart with their proto-punk single "7 and 7 Is," followed by their second album, in November 1966 Da Capo, featuring MacLean’s critically acclaimed "Orange Skies."
Despite their early success, by mid-1967 the 'classic' lineup was already falling apart, due to a combination of factors including internal tensions, complacency, lack of rehearsals, drug use, the growing creative rivalry between Lee and MacLean (MacLean was increasingly unhappy with Lee's domination of the songwriting) and Lee's refusal to tour or travel to promote their records. However, this lineup held together long enough to create their third (and final) album, Forever Changes, which is considered one of the finest rock albums ever, reaching #40 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 albums of all time, #6 on the NME 's (New Music Express's) 100 Best Albums Of All Time (2003) and #11 on Virgin's All-Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). It was entered into the National Recording Registry in May 2012.
Much of the credit for the completion of Forever Changes is due to co-producer Bruce Botnick. After early sessions stalled due to the group's lack of rehearsal and preparation, Botnik hired in several members of legendary L.A. session cohort "The Wrecking Crew" to record with Lee and MacLean on two tracks - a tactic that effectively 'shocked' the group's recalcitrant rhythm section back into action, and after a brief period of intensive rehearsals, they returned to the studio and completed the remaining cuts for the album in just 64 hours.
MacLean’s "Alone Again Or" is the opening track with Arthur Lee providing co-lead vocals.
"Alone Again Or" was the sole single released from the album to appear on the Billboard singles chart ( its B-side was Lee's "A House Is Not A Motel" ). A remixed mono version of "Alone Again Or" was released as a promo single by Elektra in 1970. "Alone Again Or" initially peaked at #123 in 1968 in an edited version, while the longer, original album version spent three weeks on the singles chart in 1970 before peaking at #99, according to Whitburn's "Top Pop Singles: 1955-2010." In 2010, "Alone Again Or" came in at #442 in a poll of the 500 greatest songs of all time conducted by Rolling Stone magazine (it was #436 in the 2004 poll). It had since been covered by many notable acts including UFO, Calexico, and The Damned.
Spiritual conversion and solo music career
{snip}
MacLean then completed a spiritual album of Christian music and was about to record another album when he died of a heart attack in a Los Angeles area restaurant on Christmas Day 1998.
Let's get to it.
Love - 7 And 7 Is
299,652 views•Oct 18, 2010
bananabushes
2.42K subscribers
Lyrics
When I was a boy I thought about the times I'd be a man
I'd sit inside a bottle and pretend that I was in a jam
In my lonely room I'd sit my mind in an ice cream cone
You can throw me if you wanna 'cause I'm a bone and I go
Oop-ip-ip oop-ip-ip, yeah!
If I don't start cryin' it's because that I have got no eyes
My father's in the fireplace and my dog lies hypnotized
Through a crack of light I was unable to find my way
Trapped inside a night but I'm a day and I go
Oop-ip-ip oop-ip-ip, yeah!
One... Two... Three... Four!
Source: Musixmatch
When I was a boy I thought about the times I'd be a man
I'd sit inside a bottle and pretend that I was in a jam
In my lonely room I'd sit my mind in an ice cream cone
You can throw me if you wanna 'cause I'm a bone and I go
Oop-ip-ip oop-ip-ip, yeah!
If I don't start cryin' it's because that I have got no eyes
My father's in the fireplace and my dog lies hypnotized
Through a crack of light I was unable to find my way
Trapped inside a night but I'm a day and I go
Oop-ip-ip oop-ip-ip, yeah!
One... Two... Three... Four!
Source: Musixmatch
I didn't associate the title with the song. Now I recognize this.
Alone Again Or (2015 Remaster)
606,018 views•Sep 26, 2015
Love - Topic
4.29K subscribers
Provided to YouTube by Rhino/Elektra
Alone Again Or (2015 Remaster) · Love